Innovator Glen Martin: Iowa Time Machine January 17, 1886

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On January 17, 1886, early American aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin was born in Macksburg. Martin set aviation records, designed important aircraft, and founded an aviation company in 1912, which many people around the world know today as Lockheed Martin.

Although Martin spent his earliest years in Iowa, his family moved to Kansas during his childhood. Interested in kites from a young age, people paid him twenty-five cents for his well-engineered kite creations. He turned his mother's kitchen into a "factory" to produce more kites, and also started using sails on ice skates, wagons, and his bicycle. After studying for a time at Kansas Wesleyan University, Martin wanted to take to the skies himself.

In 1909, Martin built his first plane based on the Curtiss June Bug design, but the first test flight destroyed it. Martin used silk and bamboo in the construction of his second plane, which successfully made a short flight. By 1912, Martin flew a self-built seaplane from Newport Bay, California, to Avalon on Catalina Island, then back across the channel. This broke the earlier English Channel record for over-water flight.

In 1912, Martin built an airplane factory for his Glenn L. Martin Company in an old Methodist church in Los Angeles, California. To make money to finance his factory, Martin started stunt-flying at fairs and other public outings. In 1916, he merged the Glenn L. Martin Company with the original Wright Company to form the Wright-Martin Aircraft Company. He soon left and founded a second Glenn L. Martin Company in 1917, which merged with the American-Marietta Corporation in 1961 to form Martin Marietta Corporation. Martin Marietta merged with the Lockheed Corporation in 1995, forming Lockheed Martin, a major U.S. aerospace and defense contractor. #Iowa #OTD #History #Innovation #Technology